What's in a word...

Saturday night, I begged Avenue Elle to come to a house party in Queens. Reason #1: As a single gal, Avenue Elle, should accept all party invitations on the off chance that she meet the man of her dreams. Reason #2: I needed a wing-gal on the off chance that The Producer became side-tracked with his friends.

I promised Elle lots of good looking men, and I delivered. Sadly, these men were more interested in The Producer than either of us. The Producer always tells me that gay men love him. I had assumed this was his ego talking, however on Saturday night I was witness to it.

All night long, men would approach the three of us and chat us up. Then eyeing the Producer and me ask, "So are you two together?" I would say something like, "we hang out" and he would make a crack about us between the sheets. Then our new party friend would disappear...

As we left the party, Elle teased The Producer about all the broken hearts he left at the party. Then she brought up the unspoken words, "Would you two just get over it! Call him your boyfriend. She's your girlfriend. It so obvious to everyone!" Despite the fact that she said these words very loudly and very clearly - neither he nor I acknowledged them, not that night on the subway platform, not that night at his place, not the next morning...

After and I overcame a series of hiccups (Case #1, Case #2, Case #3, Case #4) we have settled into a very comfortable groove. Calls, emails, mid-week sleep overs, weekend sleep overs, dinners, movies, bottles of wine, invitations to "meet my friends", weekends out of town... It is all quite regular.

Now who is bogarting the adult relationship rule book? At what point are you use that "all-accompanying" relationship word -- boyfriend/girlfriend? This isn't Jr. High, he isn't going to ask me at the dance on Friday if I'll be his girlfriend... One thing is certain, I am not going to use the word first.